Batman vs Superman...oh, and everyone else, too

Today, Zach Snyder the director of the upcoming Batman vs Superman film (and every other DC film as far as anyone is aware) tweeted a picture of Jason Momoa as Aquaman. As everyone pretty much expected, he has donned the tradition bright orange jumpsuit with green underpants on the top, or rather that’s what i was hoping to see. Instead, I was greeted with a rather more appropriate looking Aquaman who is bearded and brooding. I shall include a link to Zach Synder’s tweet which has the picture attached below so you can Conan the Aquarian for yourself.

https://twitter.com/ZackSnyder/status/568650209581858817?s=09

Taking into consideration the time frame of the filming of the DC cinematic universe films, the posting of this picture would suggest that King Triton will be appearing in Batman vs Superman. This seems problematic given the number of other DC characters rumoured to also make an appearance in this film. The confirmed list (as far as im aware) of who will appear in this film is as follows: Batman, Superman, Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Alfred Pennyworth, and Cyborg. All of those characters apart from Superman need to be introduced in a 2 hour period. It seems to be an impossible task. They will either play major roles and therefore have a poor introductions due to time restrictions or the majority will be cameos, which would make me question why they’d been forced in the film in the first place.

The picture of Poseidon was pretty much what I expected. Jason Momoa looks like the Aquaman I have been familiar with in DC comic for several years now. Essentially, this picture changes nothing of my feeling towards how he will play the character, just the way in which I think the Batman vs Superman film will play out. I truly hope it isn’t a case of having too many big fishes in a small pond.

Conor M.

Cinema paving the way for TV?

Cinema has always been seen as a more prestigious format than television. You can see it how Academy Awards are seen as more important than the Emmy’s, in how film releases are donned with red carpet premieres, or simply in how Alfred Hitchcock famously refused to have any of his creative efforts go into television. But the days of Alfred Hitchcock in his prime are long gone, and now it seems that TV has taken on some of the traits of cinema and is consequently coming up in the world.

The ‘Cinematic Universe’ is something that has always been related to Cinema (obviously) in instances such as Star Wars and more recently Marvel. A Cinematic Universe created a continuous story within a fictional world that allowed moviegoers to become a part of. Now, from this description it would seem this concept of a cinematic universe is somewhat already the format television operates within, long form stories spanning across series. Right? Not quite. The format of TV never really had the layers that a cinematic universe had, the closest thing TV had previously had to a cinematic universe was spin offs. But, there was a disconnect with spin offs a lot of the time, and the spin off series, while related to the original series, was taken in isolation. What TV is now doing though is applying the cinematic universe format more effectively, perhaps most notably with The CW and what they have done with Arrow and The Flash, series’ on a single network interlocking in both story lines and characters to create a large entity.

That is a way in which Cinema has allowed Television to borrow a concept, however there are other instances where Cinema has made mistakes which TV has noted and is aptly avoiding, one of the main ones is the idea of the blockbuster. Cinema, with the growth of CGI and scope has lost its way slightly with storytelling. Films like Transformers dominate the box office, Transformers which is a film that is comprised of 70% CGI fighting robots, 30% irrelevant forced love story, and 0% real plot.  As the budget of Blockbusters continue to rise, in a lot of cases the quality of the films is decreasing due to narrative taking a back seat. Now, narrative, long form storytelling, and plot in general are all things that play neatly into Televisions hands. TV will always remain grounded because it will never get the income that films can from a £7 admission, and so, as of late, TV has taken this understanding of what is important and run with it, leading to some of the most critically acclaimed programmes ever to be shown on TV.

The final favour that cinema has done for TV is lend it its star power. There are more A list actors on TV now than there has ever conceivably been in the past. We have Kevin Spacey, Matthew Mcconaughey, Woody Harrelson, Lawrence Fishburne, Madds Mikkelsen etc. The list goes on. With the audiences that these names draw, the interest that compelling long form storytelling has, and the ideas that TV has taken from film, TV looks to not only keep growing as an industry but maybe one day put the Emmys at around the same level as the Oscars.

Conor M.

Ps Plus Collection: Secret Ponchos & Injustice: Gods Among Us

Playstation Plus Collection is an ongoing series where I give my first impression of all of the games that are made available each month through Playstation plus. Typically, there are around four free games per month, and so one shall be covered each week. At the end of each month I shall give an overall verdict of the worth of Playstation plus for that particular month.

This week I shall be bringing you a double header of Ps Plus Collection to finish the year off with a bang. Or rather, I could only get into one game of Secret Ponchos and Injustice is a humongous download size. Therefore I’m bringing you the both of them in the hope that I have enough content to tell you if these games, that I’ve barely played, are worth downloading.

Secret Poncho’s is a top down strictly multiplayer fighting game that comes with all of the standard multiplayer types that you’ll have come to expect in any online game – free for all, team deathmatch etc.  After waiting for approximately half an hour, the lobby that requires a total of 8 people finally filled up and I was thrown into a free-for-all match. Within the multiplayer you have numerous choices for weaponry, I chose to go with the gunslinger, and I found that my choice was probably the worst one, as people with whips quote literally whipped my ass.

The game itself is very stylistic, and for a PSN game i would have the say the graphics are very impressive. The game play is something that is unique to a console environment with it being top down and offers something new to the weary PSN traveller. But, and this is a big but, the game is dead. It is one of this month’s Playstation plus games which should put it in the spotlight, but alas it is not populated enough to work as a go to multiplayer. If you’ve got some a bunch of friends that want to try something different you could make this work, but otherwise I’d give this one a pass.

Now, Injustice: Gods Among Us is a DC multiverse orientated story driven fighting game, much like Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe except this game is a strictly DC game with a unique story that has even spawned a comic spin off. Although i have not played this game recently because the download size is far too big for my internet to deal with, I have played this game in the past and it is a very good game. The game itself functions around cut senses which push the story forward while also setting up two characters to fight in the typical side-to-side style at which point you take over.

The game has its own general fighting mode as well in case the story is getting in the way of the fighting for you, or if you just want to fight against a friend. The fighting system is on par with anything else out there at the moment whether that is Mortal Kombat or Tekken or whatever. It has all the typical traits of a fighting game with the added bonus of being DC. So you can naturally be Batman, Superman, Wonder woman along with all of the other well loved DC characters...and Aquaman. The story aspect may not be for everyone as it is based around a fighting game, but if fighting games and comics is what you’re into, this is a match made in heaven.

Conor M.

I'm Exiting The Batman vs Superman Hype Train.

You know, by all rights, I should be absolutely buzzing for March 2016 to come around with DC (or Warner Bros) continuing their expansion of the universe set up in Man of Steel – miserable Superman and all. A film that will see the introduction of Batman, the greatest character ever created (apart from Charlie Sheen), as he goes toe to toe with Supes himself. This is everything our childhood hoped and dreamed for. I should be fucking psyched. Why aren’t I psyched!?

Is it because of a series of bizarre casting choices that enraged fans everywhere? Maybe. Is it the over-saturation of significant characters in a film already populated by the two biggest comic book characters in the world? Probably. Is it because Zack Snyder is directing? Most definitely. But my main problem with this universe that Warner Bros is creating is that it feels so rushed and forced. There is an obvious desperation to trying to cram introductions for Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Cyborg into one film as well as any super-villains that will be popping up, especially when we are only into the second installment of this universe.

Man of Steel was a solid foundation to build upon, it wasn’t great but it wasn’t terrible either. Superman is a great character but we didn’t get time to see any of it amidst the angry punching and neck snapping – I wanted DC to take a step back and build their universe around Supes, flesh him and his motivations out a bit more. You can’t just throw out a wooden plank with a red cape on screen, and just because his name is Superman, expect audiences to immediately love him and be invested in his character.

And now, instead of getting a solo sequel that would give him room to develop, Man of Steel 2 has basically become Justice League Lite, with Superman having to share screen time with most of the team. We don’t know anything about this guy apart from the fact he is an alien with a passion for red and blue. All you have to do is look over to Marvel’s stellar example of how to intricately craft a cinematic universe, they teased us with foreplay for fours years and five movies before we finally got to see The Avengers assemble on screen. Marvel had made us wait for what we wanted and the payoff was beautiful.

But this isn’t a blog about how great Marvel is at the moment, I will leave those etchings for my dream journal, this is about my complete and utter lack of excitement for Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice. Granted, that may well change when the trailer is released and we finally get to see some footage but at the moment, everything we are hearing is questionable at best. I mean, really Warner Bros!? Jesse Eisenburg as Lex Luthor!? You may well have screwed the proverbial pooch on that account.

And if I’m being honest, Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice is a dumb fucking title. Did justice not exist before Batman punched Superman in the nose for destroying Metropolis? Get your shit together Warner Bros.

Alex A.